Unfortunately, the prayers of (some people) reveal
how little they know about the God to Whom they pray. Their prayers betray
an understanding of God that renders the Creator of the universe subservient
to their temporal needs and concerns. Their God is often little more than
the Big Guy in the Sky, the Man Upstairs. He's the heavenly Santa Claus
who's keeping score, trying to find out who's been naughty or nice, so that
he can determine the magnitude of His generosity before He answers. ...

May the Lord keep us from ever believing that our goodness is something we've
worked up from within. May we realize again that whatever goodness lives in us
is the goodness of God shining through . . . the One who gave His Son to give us
life. And to save us from ourselves. ...

For myself, the best things I know about God, I have learned in the midst of
every rotten thing that can happen to a person. The absolute worst thing that
can happen to us is for God to leave us to ourselves. ...

This week, we are in the midst of two important events with deep spiritual
ramifications. First, there was the mass murders in a Denver, Colorado suburb
that makes most people wonder about the evil in the world and where God is when
we face these evil. Surprisingly, evil can come from the most unsuspecting
sources.

The second event is the Family and Youth Conference of the Malankara Archdiocese
of the Syrian Orthodox Church in North America that is to be held in Maryland
from July 26-29. The theme of the conference is Romans 12:12 "Rejoice in your
hope; be patient in tribulation; be constant in prayer." When we face the dark
valley of death and evil, we can be sure that we are not alone. We have a very
powerful weapon, viz., prayer. We get strengthened by prayer. Yes, Satan can
tempt us; but he cannot win so long as we are protected by our prayers.

So, this edition of the Malankara World Journal is dedicated to looking at the
evil in this world and prayer. We will have more to say about Romans 12:12 in
future journals. Enjoy.

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. -- Continue in prayer, and
watch in the same with thanksgiving. -- Casting all your care upon him; for he
careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a
roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in
the faith.

Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? -- Be ye doers of
the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go
forward.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus.

I love to listen to the prayers of others. I listen to how they pray and what
they say. The language they use reflects their understanding of God. Some refer
to God as "Father" in their communication with Him reflecting a profound sense
of intimacy. Others approach Him as "Sovereign God" or "Lord," titles which
suggest a healthy dose of respect for God. The depth of some believers'
relationship with God saturates their prayers and lifts you up to heaven with
them.

Unfortunately, the prayers of others often reveal how little they know about the
God to Whom they pray. Their prayers betray an understanding of God that renders
the Creator of the universe subservient to their temporal needs and concerns.
Their God is often little more than the Big Guy in the Sky, the Man Upstairs.
He's the heavenly Santa Claus who's keeping score, trying to find out who's been
naughty or nice, so that he can determine the magnitude of His generosity before
He answers. With such a low view of God, is it any wonder so few Christians
experience the joy of having their prayers answered?

According to many surveys, most people pray. In fact, surprisingly large numbers
of them claim to pray weekly, even those who profess little faith in a
recognizable religion. Yet, a quick survey of an Internet bookstore reveals that
most don't know how to pray. Tens of thousands of books on the topic can found
on one website alone. The stunning silence one hears in church when the call
goes out for volunteers to pray aloud bears testimony to this spiritual
ignorance. Rather than seeing prayer as a privilege, far too many Christians see
it as a task for which they are woefully unprepared.

The great Martyn Lloyd-Jones rightly diagnosed this weakness in the common
Christian:

There is no question but that this is our greatest need. More and more we miss
the very greatest blessings in the Christian life because we do not know how to
pray aright. We need instruction in every respect with regard to this matter. We
need to be taught how to pray, and we need to be taught what to pray for. [i]

The first disciples were not prepared for prayer, either. They watched quietly
in the wings time and time again as Christ prayed. They saw His example. They
heard His cries. Yet, they failed to learn their lesson. That is, until the day
one of their number admitted his ignorance and sought instruction. "Lord, teach
us to pray" (Luke 11:1).

Ever the gracious teacher, Christ did not chide the disciples for their
immaturity. He did not lambast their spiritual silence. Instead, He granted
their request and provided the greatest manual on prayer ever given to man. He
gave them the "Lord's Prayer." He taught them to pray.

Of this blessed passage, Matthew 6:9-13, Bishop J. C. Ryle wrote,

No part of Scripture is so full, and so simple at the same time as this .... It
contains the germ of everything which the most advanced saint can desire: here
is its fullness. The more we ponder every word it contains the more we shall
feel "this prayer is of God."[ii]

Such a response is fitting for the prayer given is of God because it is about
God.

Jesus understood the darkness of man's heart. He recognized the tendency of the
human heart to bring God down to our level rather than to raise ourselves up to
His. Thus, when He taught His disciples how to pray, He taught them to pray with
God as the central focus of their prayers. This, He intimated, was to be the
norm, not the exception. "Pray, then, in this way" (Matt 6:9). The remainder of
the so-called "Lord's Prayer" provides a guide, a model to be followed for true
God-centered, God-saturated prayer. After all, this is not some cosmic Santa
Claus with Whom we converse but the great I AM.

Bearing these great spiritual truths in mind, our prayer becomes a matter of
worship rather than an opportunity to update God on our needs. It lifts God up.
It acknowledges His rightful claim on the throne of our lives. If we were to
keep this fundamental truth in mind, perhaps more of us would be faithful in
keeping prayer a central part of our Christian walk.

Matthew Henry began his seminal text on prayer with these words of admonition.

Our spirits being composed into a very reverent serious frame, our thoughts
gathered in, and all that is within us, charged in the Name of the great God,
carefully to attend the solemn and awful service that lies before us, and to
keep close to it, we must with a fixed attention and application of mind, and an
active lively faith, set the Lord before us, see his eye upon us, and set
ourselves in his special presence, presenting ourselves to him as living
sacrifices, which we desire may be holy and acceptable, and a reasonable
service, and then bind these sacrifices with cords to the horns of the alter,
... .[iii]

The God of the "Lord's Prayer" is not the man upstairs. He is not to be trifled
with. His grace is not to be presumed upon. He is to be approached with
confidence because of the work of Christ (Heb 10:19). But, He is to be
approached (with) "reverence and awe" (Heb 12:28-29).

All prayer, true prayer, Jesus teaches us even today, is to be God-centered,
ever admitting that prayer does not change God. It should change us. The prayer
that does not is not prayer at all.

The next time you pray, thank God that Jesus taught us how to pray. Amen.

Peter Beck is Assistant Professor of Religion and Director of the Honors Program
at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, South Carolina. He is the
author of The Voice of Faith: Jonathan Edwards's Theology of Prayer.

Why Does God Allow Tragedy and Suffering?

by Lee Strobel

It was the worst mass shooting in American history – 70 people shot by a gunman,
12 of them killed, while they were watching the midnight showing of a new movie
just 21 miles from where we're sitting. There are no words to describe the
anguish being felt by those who are suffering today; our heart and prayers have
– and will – go out to them. There are so many tragic stories, so much pain. And
many people are asking the question, "Why? Why did God allow this?"

This has been a heart-rending summer for Colorado. First came the wildfires,
which ravaged the houses of hundreds of our neighbors – and prompted many of
them to ask the question, "Why?"

And those two tragic events are on top of the everyday pain and suffering being
experienced in individual lives – maybe including yours. There's illness, abuse,
broken relationships, betrayal, sorrow, injuries, disappointment, heartache,
crime and death. And perhaps you've been asking the question, "Why? Why me? Why
now?"

That "why" question goes back thousands of years. It was asked in the Old
Testament by Job and the writers of the Psalms, and it was especially relevant
during the 20th century, where we witnessed two World Wars, the Holocaust,
genocides in the Soviet Union and China, devastating famines in Africa, the
killing fields of Cambodia, the emergence of AIDS, the genocide in Rwanda and
the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. And the 21st Century didn't start any better.
There was 9/11 and now the Syrian slaughters, and on and on. Why all of this if
there's a loving and powerful God? Why do bad things happen to good people?

Several years ago, I commissioned a national survey and asked people what
question they'd ask if they could only ask God one thing. The Number One
response was: "Why is there suffering in the world?" Incidentally, I did find an
interesting statistical quirk – people who are married were much more likely to
want to know why there's so much suffering. I'm just sayin'.

But if you've never asked why our world is infected with pain and suffering, you
will when they strike you with full force or they come to a loved one. And Jesus
said they are coming. Unlike some other religious leaders who wrote off pain and
suffering as just being illusions, Jesus was honest. He told us the truth. He
said in John 16:33, "You will have suffering in this world." He didn't say you
might – he said it is going to happen.

But why? If you ask me point-blank, "Why did God allow the gunman to spray the
Aurora movie theater with gunfire just two days ago?", the only answer I can
honestly give consists of four words – "I do not know."

I cannot stand in the shoes of God and give a complete answer to that question.
I don't have God's mind. I don't see with God's eyes. First Corinthians 13:12
says, "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but
then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial
and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now
knows me completely."

So when you ask about specific individual events and want to know why this
particular thing happened, we won't get the full answer in this world. Someday
we'll see with clarity, but for now things are foggy. We can't understand
everything from our finite perspective. And frankly, the people suffering from
the Aurora tragedy don't need a big theological treatise right now; any
intellectual response is going to seem trite and inadequate. What they
desperately need now is the very real and comforting presence of Jesus Christ in
their lives. And I'm so grateful that so many churches and ministries of this
community are helping them experience that.

But for us, let's focus on the big, overarching issue of why God generally
allows suffering in our lives – your life and mine. Friends, this is important:
even though we can't understand everything about it, we can understand some
things. Let me give you an analogy.

Once Leslie and I were driving from Chicago to Door County, Wisconsin, which is
that thumb-shaped peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan. We were driving up the
highway in the dark, when it started raining heavily and we hit dense fog. I
could barely see the white stripe on the edge of the road. I couldn't stop
because I was afraid someone might come along and rear-end us. It was
frightening!

But then a truck appeared in front of us and we could clearly see his taillights
through the fog. He apparently had fog lamps in front, because he was traveling
at a confident and deliberate pace, and I knew if we could just follow those
taillights, we'd be headed in the right direction.

And the same is true in understanding why there is tragedy and suffering in our
lives and in our world. We may not be able to make out all the peripheral
details of why — they may be obscured from our view — but there are some key
Biblical truths that can illuminate some points of light for us. And if we
follow those lights, they will lead us in the right direction, toward some
conclusions that I believe can help satisfy our hearts and souls.

What are those points of light? Let me go through five of them that I've
personally found helpful whenever I've been prompted to ask the question, "Why?"
The first point of light: God is not the creator of evil and suffering.

This answers the question you hear so often: "Why didn't God merely create a
world where tragedy and suffering didn't exist?" The answer is: He did! Genesis
1:31 says: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

But if God is not the author of tragedy or evil or death, where did they come
from? Well, God has existed from eternity past as the Father, Son and Spirit,
together in a relationship of perfect love. So love is the highest value in the
universe. And when God decided to create human beings, he wanted us to
experience love. But to give us the ability to love, God had to give us free
will to decide whether to love or not to love. Why? Because love always involves
a choice.

If we were programmed to say, "I love you," it wouldn't really be love. When my
daughter was little, she had a doll with a string in the back, and when you
pulled it the doll said, "I love you." Did that doll love my daughter? Of course
not. It was programmed to say those words. To really experience love, that doll
would need to have been able to choose to love or not to love. Again – real love
always involves a choice.

So in order for us to experience love, God bestowed on us free will. But
unfortunately, we humans have abused our free will by rejecting God and walking
away from Him. And that has resulted in the introduction of two kinds of evil
into the world: moral evil and natural evil.

Moral evil is the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy that come
because we choose to be selfish, arrogant, uncaring, hateful and abusive. Romans
3:23 says "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

So much of the world's suffering results from the sinful action or inaction of
ourselves and others. For example, people look at a famine and wonder where God
is, but the world produces enough food for each person to have 3,000 calories a
day. It's our own irresponsibility and self-centeredness that prevents people
from getting fed.

In other words: look at your hand. You can choose to use that hand to hold a gun
and shoot someone, or you can use it to feed hungry people. It's your choice.
But it's unfair to shoot someone and then blame God for the existence of evil
and suffering. Like that old cartoon said: "We have seen the enemy, and he is
us."

The second kind of evil is called natural evil. These are things like wildfires,
earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes that cause suffering for people. But
these, too, are the indirect result of sin being allowed into the world. As one
author explained: "When we humans told God to shove off, He partially honored
our request. Nature began to revolt. The earth was cursed. Genetic breakdown and
disease began. Pain and death became part of the human experience."

The Bible says it's because of sin that nature was corrupted and "thorns and
thistles" entered the world. Romans 8:22 says, "We know that the whole creation
has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."
In other words, nature longs for redemption to come and for things to be set
right. That's the source of disorder and chaos.

Let's make this crystal clear once more: God did not create evil and suffering.
Now, it's true that he did create the potential for evil to enter the world,
because that was the only way to create the potential for genuine goodness and
love. But it was human beings, in our free will, who brought that potential evil
into reality.

Some people ask, "Couldn't God have foreseen all of this?" And no doubt he did.
But look at it this way: many of you are parents. Even before you had children,
couldn't you foresee that there was the very real possibility they may suffer
disappointment or pain or heartache in life, or that they might even hurt you
and walk away from you? Of course — but you still had kids. Why? Because you
knew there was also the potential for tremendous joy and deep love and great
meaning.

Now, the analogy is far from perfect, but think about God. He undoubtedly knew
we'd rebel against Him, but He also knew many people would choose to follow Him
and have a relationship with Him and spend eternity in heaven with Him — and it
was all worth it for that, even though it would cost His own Son great pain and
suffering to achieve their redemption.

So, first, it helps me to remember, as I ponder the mystery of pain and evil,
that God did not create them. The second point of light is this: Though
suffering isn't good, God can use it to accomplish good.

He does this by fulfilling His promise in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose."

Notice that the verse doesn't say God causes evil and suffering, just that he
promises to cause good to emerge. And notice that the verse doesn't say we all
will see immediately or even in this life how God has caused good to emerge from
a bad circumstance. Remember, we only see things dimly in this world. And notice
that God doesn't make this promise to everyone. He makes the solemn pledge that
he will take the bad circumstances that befall us and cause good to emerge if
we're committed to following Him.

The Old Testament gives us a great example in the story of Joseph, who went
through terrible suffering, being sold into slavery by his brothers, unfairly
accused of a crime and falsely imprisoned. Finally, after a dozen years, he was
put in a role of great authority where he could save the lives of his family and
many others.

This is what he said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: "You intended to harm me,
but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of
many lives." And if you're committed to God, He promises that He can and will
take whatever pain you're experiencing and draw something good from it.

You might say, "No, he can't in my circumstance. The harm was too great, the
damage was too extreme, the depth of my suffering has been too much. No, in my
case there's no way God can cause any good to emerge."

But if you doubt God's promise, listen to what a wise man said to me when I was
researching my book The Case for Faith: God took the very worst thing that has
ever happened in the history of the universe — deicide, or the death of God on
the cross — and turned it into the very best thing that has happened in history
of universe: the opening up of heaven to all who follow Him. So if God can take
the very worst circumstance imaginable and turn it into the very best situation
possible, can he not take the negative circumstances of your life and create
something good from them?

He can and He will. God can use our suffering to draw us to Himself, to mold and
sharpen our character, to influence others for Him – He can draw something good
from our pain in a myriad of ways…if we trust and follow Him.

Now, the third point of light: The day is coming when suffering will cease and
God will judge evil.

A lot of times you'll hear people say: "If God has the power to eradicate evil
and suffering, then why doesn't He do it?" And the answer is that because He
hasn't done it yet doesn't mean He won't do it. You know, I wrote my first novel
last year. What if someone read only half of it and then slammed it down and
said, "Well, Lee did a terrible job with that book. There are too many loose
ends with the plot. He didn't resolve all the issues with the characters." I'd
say, "Hey – you only read half the book!"

And the Bible says that the story of this world isn't over yet. It says the day
will come when sickness and pain will be eradicated and people will be held
accountable for the evil they've committed. Justice will be served in a perfect
way. That day will come, but not yet.

So what's holding God up? One answer is that some of you may be. He's actually
delaying the consummation of history in anticipation that some of you will still
put your trust in Him and spend eternity in heaven. He's delaying everything out
of His love for you. SecondPeter 3:9 says: "The Lord is not slow in keeping His
promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone
to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."To me, that's evidence of a
loving God, that He would care that much for you.

Point of Light #4: Our suffering will pale in comparison to what God has in
store for his followers.

I certainly don't want to minimize pain and suffering, but it helps if we take a
long-term perspective. Look at this verse, and remember they were written by the
apostle Paul, who suffered through beatings and stonings and shipwrecks and
imprisonments and rejection and hunger and thirst and homelessness and far more
pain that most of us will ever have to endure. These are his words:

Second Corinthians 4:17: "For our light and momentary troubles" — wait a second:
light and momentary troubles? Five different times his back was shredded when he
was flogged 39 lashes with a whip; three times he was beaten to a bloody pulp by
rods. But he says, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an
eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

Paul also wrote Romans 8:18: "I consider that our present sufferings are not
worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Think of it this way. Let's say that on the first day of 2012, you had an awful,
terrible day. You had an emergency root canal at the dentist and the ran out of
pain-killers. You crashed your car and had no insurance. Your stock portfolio
took a nosedive. Your spouse got sick. A friend betrayed you. From start to
finish, it was like the title of that children's book: Alexander & the Terrible,
Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

But then every other day of the year was just incredibly terrific. Your
relationship with God is close and real and intimate. A friend wins the lottery
and gives you $100 million. You get promoted at work to your dream job. Time
magazine puts your photo on its cover as "The Person of the Year." You have your
first child and he's healthy and strong. Your marriage is idyllic, your health
is fabulous, you have a six-month vacation in Tahiti.

Then next New Year's Day someone asks, "So, how was your 2012?" You'd say, "It
was great; it was wonderful!" And they'd say, "But didn't it start out bad?
Didn't you go through a lot of trouble that first day?"

You'd think back and say, "You're right. That was a bad day, no denying it. It
was difficult at the time. It was hard. It was painful. But when I look at the
totality of the year, when I put everything in context, it's been a great year.
The 364 terrific days far outweigh the one bad day. That day just sort of fades
away."

And maybe that's a good analogy for heaven. Listen to me – that is not to deny
the reality of your pain in this life. It might be terrible. It might be
chronic. My wife Leslie has a medical condition that puts her in pain every
single day. Maybe you're suffering from a physical ailment or heartache at this
very moment. But in heaven, after 354,484,545 days of pure bliss — and with an
infinite more to come — if someone asked, "So, how has your existence been?",
you'd instantly react by saying, "It has been absolutely wonderful! Words can't
describe the joy and the delight and the fulfillment!"

And if they said, "But didn't you have a tough time before you got here," you'd
probably think back and say, "Well, yes, it's true that those days were painful,
I can't deny that. They were difficult, they were bad. But when I put them into
context, in light of all God's outpouring of goodness to me, those bad days
aren't even worth comparing with the eternity of blessings and joy that I'm
experiencing."

It's like the story that British church leader Galvin Reid tells about meeting a
young man who had fallen down a flight of stairs as a baby and shattered his
back. He had been in and out of hospitals his whole life — and yet he made the
astounding comment that he thinks God is fair. Reid asked him, "How old are
you?" The boy said, "Seventeen." Reid asked, "How many years have you spend in
hospitals?" The boy said, "Thirteen years." The pastor said with astonishment,
"And you think that is fair?" And the boy replied: "Well, God has all eternity
to make it up to me."

And He will. God promises a time when there will be no more crying, no more
tears, no more pain and suffering, when we will be reunited with God in perfect
harmony, forever. Let the words of First Corinthians 2:9 soak into your soul:
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared
for those who love him." That's absolutely breath-taking, isn't it?

Finally, Point of Light #5: We decide whether to turn bitter or turn to God for
peace and courage.

We've all seen examples of how the same suffering that causes one person to turn
bitter, to reject God, to become hard and angry and sullen, can cause another
person to turn to God, to become more gentle and more loving and more tender,
willing to reach out to compassionately help other people who are in pain. Some
who lose a child to a drunk driver turn inward in chronic rage and never-ending
despair; another turns outward to help others by founding Mothers Against Drunk
Drivers.

As one philosopher said: "I believe all suffering is at least potential good, an
opportunity for good. It's up to our free choice to actualize that potential.
Not all of us benefit from suffering and learn from it, because that's up to us,
it's up to our free will."

We make the choice to either run away from God or to run to Him. But what
happens if we run to Him?

I started this talk with part of what Jesus said in John 16:33. Now let me give
you the entire verse: "I have told you these things so that in me you may have
peace. You will have suffering in this world. But be courageous! I have
conquered the world."

In other words, He offers us the two very things we need when we're hurting:
peace to deal with our present and courage to deal with our future. How? Because
he has conquered the world! Through His own suffering and death, He has deprived
this world of its ultimate power over you. Suffering doesn't have the last word
anymore. Death doesn't have the last word anymore. God has the last word!

So let me finish the story of Leslie and I driving through the fog in Wisconsin.
We were following the taillights of that truck when the fog slowly began to
lift, the rain began to let up and we entered a town with some lights – things
were becoming clearer, we could see better, and as we rounded a curve,
silhouetted against the night sky, guess what we saw? We saw the steeple of a
church and the cross of Christ. After driving through the confusion of the fog
for so long, that image struck me with poignancy I'll never forget. Because it
was through that cross that Jesus conquered the world for us.

As that wise man once said to me: God's ultimate answer to suffering isn't an
explanation; it's the incarnation. Suffering is a personal problem; it demands a
personal response. And God isn't some distant, detached, and disinterested
deity; He entered into our world and personally experienced our pain. Jesus is
there in the lowest places of our lives. Are you broken? He was broken, like
bread, for us. Are you despised? He was despised and rejected of men. Do you cry
out that you can't take any more? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. Did someone betray you? He was sold out. Are your most tender
relationships broken? He loved and He was rejected. Did people turn from you?
They hid their faces from Him as if He were a leper. Does He descend into all of
our hells? Yes, He does. From the depths of a Nazi death camp, Corrie ten Boom
wrote these words: "No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still." Every
tear we shed becomes his tear.

And then the wise man told me this: it's not just that God knows and sympathizes
with you in your troubles. After all, any close friend can do that. Any close
friend can sit beside you and comfort you and empathize with you. No, Jesus is
much closer than your closest friend. Because if you've put your trust in Him,
then He is in you. And, therefore, your sufferings are His sufferings; your
sorrow is His sorrow.

So when tragedy strikes, as it will; when suffering comes, as it will; when
you're wrestling with pain, as you will – and when you make the choice to run
into His arms, here's what you're going to discover: you'll find peace to deal
with the present, you'll find courage to deal with your future, and you'll find
the incredible promise of eternal life in heaven.

As I've been saying, all of us will go through pain and suffering. But let me
end by going back to this specific tragedy that took place two days ago in
Aurora. For all the things it leaves us confused about, one of the truths it
clearly illustrates is that life is so fragile and short. These people were
going to a movie! They had no clue that this might be their last moments in this
world. Friends, in this sin-scarred world, we never know when death will come
knocking. Often, we don't get any warning when a heart attack strikes, or when a
drunk driver crosses the centerline, or when a wildfire sweeps through a canyon,
or when an airplane loses power. And so the question I'm compelled to ask you is
this – "Are you ready?"

One of the first verses I memorized as a Christian is First John 5:13: "These
things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order
that you may know that you have eternal life."

God doesn't want you wondering. He doesn't want you steeped in anxiety over
whether you're headed for heaven. His infallible, inerrant Word says you can
know for sure.

Don't rely on the fact that you come to church or you've gone through some sort
of religious ritual in the past. The Bible is clear that we can be religious but
not be in a relationship with God. Religious activities and affiliations never
saved anyone. Salvation comes from knowing Christ personally and receiving His
provision for YOUR sin and YOUR future. It comes from making him YOUR Savior, by
asking Him to forgive YOUR every sin, and by asking Him to lead YOUR life.

But it doesn't happen automatically. It doesn't come by attending a great
church, or being baptized, or taking communion, or hanging out with a bunch of
Christians. It comes from deciding in your heart that you want to turn from your
sin, to stop trusting in your own resources, and to accept the forgiveness and
eternal life that Jesus purchased on the cross and is offering you as a free
gift. THAT is how you gain God's peace and confidence.

So settle it now! Resolve this today, at this moment, so that if tragedy were to
strike, your eternity with God would be secure. I don't know all the ways God is
going to draw some good from this Aurora situation, but wouldn't it be something
if He were starting right now, with you personally, and using this message to
bring you into His kingdom at this very moment? Let the pain of that tragedy
open your heart to Christ. Let's take what was intended for evil and watch God
start creating something good from it.

Pray with me right now to receive Christ – so that you can know for sure that
even if the very worst thing were to happen to you after you leave the
auditorium today, it will immediately be followed by the very best thing of all.

Lord Jesus, I believe that You are the unique Son of God. I confess to You that
I'm a sinner. In repentance and faith, I reach out right now and receive the
free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that You graciously purchased on the
cross when You died as my substitute to pay for all of my sins. Please, Lord
Jesus, lead my life – because from this moment on, I am Yours. I pray this is
Your name. Amen.

A message delivered by Lee Strobel on Sunday, July 22, at Cherry Hills Community
Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Who is Responsible for the Killings in Denver?

by Dr. James Emery White

In the second installment of Christopher Nolan's "Batman" trilogy, Alfred the
butler gives a chilling description of the Joker:

"Perhaps this is a man you don't fully understand…Some men aren't looking for
anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or
negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

The world now knows the name of James Holmes, the loner graduate student who
opened fire at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora,
Colorado, killing twelve and wounding dozens more.

He had dyed his hair red, and later told police he was the Joker.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the dominant cultural discussion – following
shock and horror – has followed two streams. The first is gun control. The idea
is that this nightmare, along with others like it, calls for new laws.

The other cultural current is, "How could God allow this?"

Both conversations need to wrestle with the same reality, a word that is often
airbrushed from our rhetoric.

Evil.

The medieval Christian philosopher Boethius aptly noted that "evil is not so
much an infliction as a deep set infection."

In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the provocative
title, Whatever Became of Sin? His point was that sociology and psychology tend
to avoid terms like "evil," or "immorality," and "wrongdoing." Menninger
detailed how the theological notion of sin became the legal idea of crime and
then slid further from its true meaning when it was relegated to the
psychological category of sickness.

We need the word back.

Why? Because God was not behind what happened in Aurora, much less responsible
for it.

A person was.

Philip Yancey, a writer who has invested much of his life exploring these
issues, was contacted by a television producer after the death of Princess Diana
to appear on a show and explain how God could have possibly allowed such a
tragic accident.

"Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going ninety miles an
hour in a narrow tunnel?," he asked the producer. "How, exactly, was God
involved?"

From this, Yancey reflected on the pervasive nature of the mindset that our
actions are actually an indictment of God.

Such as when boxer Ray "boom boom" Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match, the
athlete said in a press conference, "Sometimes I wonder why God does the things
he does."

In a letter to a Christian family therapist, a young woman told of dating a man
and becoming pregnant. She wanted to know why God allowed that to happen to her.

In her official confession, when South Carolina mother Susan Smith pushed her
two sons into a lake to drown, she said that as she did it, she went running
after the car as it sped down the ramp screaming, "Oh God! Oh God, no!...Why did
you let this happen!"

Yancey raises the decisive question by asking,

"What exactly was the role God played in a boxer pummeling his opponent, a
teenager abandoning her virtue, or a mother drowning her children?"

God let us choose, and we did, and our choices have brought continual pain and
heartache and destruction.

The recuperating victims, the families of the deceased, and all who were
traumatized by that night in Aurora deserve our prayers and anything else we can
offer to serve.

But make no mistake.

Holmes was, indeed, the Joker. And no gun law, much less God, has anything to do
with his evil.

Sources

James Emery White, Wrestling with God (InterVarsity Press).

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy.

Karl Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin?

Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God.

Editor's Note:

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community
Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and
culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their
fourth president. His newly released book is A Traveler's Guide to the Kingdom:
Journeying through the Christian Life (InterVarsity Press).

Source: Church & Culture Blog, Vol. 8, No. 59

The Man Next Door

by Dennis Rainey

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me. - GALATIANS 2:20

Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes once interviewed Yehiel Dinur, a Holocaust survivor
and witness at the Nuremberg trials. During the show, Wallace played a 1961 clip
of Dinur walking into the Israeli courtroom where Adolf Eichmann was on trial. A
principal architect of the Holocaust, Eichmann had evaded capture for years but
had finally been found and brought to justice.

As Dinur spied Eichmann for the first time in 18 years—he had last seen the
German mastermind at Auschwitz, the notorious death camp—he stopped still in his
tracks. He began to sob uncontrollably. He fainted and collapsed to the floor.

Was he overcome by hatred? Fear? Horrid memories? Actually, as he said later, it
was none of these. What overwhelmed Dinur was this: Suddenly he realized
Eichmann was not the godlike army officer who had sent so many to their cruel
deaths.

Adolf Eichmann was just an ordinary man.

Wallace captured it best when he asked, "How is it possible for a man to act as
Eichmann did? Was he a monster? A madman? Or was he perhaps something even more
terrifying—was he normal?"

"Eichmann," Dinur said, "is in all of us."

This hard truth about ourselves is difficult to swallow. If not for fear of
consequences or a liking for our own reputation or the healing flow of God's
grace, we are capable of anything.

May the Lord keep us from ever believing that our goodness is something we've
worked up from within. May we realize again that whatever goodness lives in us
is the goodness of God shining through . . . the One who gave His Son to give us
life. And to save us from ourselves.

DISCUSS

What evidence exists in you that we are all born sinful and self-centered and
are in desperate need of Christ?

PRAY

Ask God to reveal again the full extent of His salvation. Thank God for His
redemption, not only from hell, but also from being enslaved to self.

Source: Moments with You

Why Is It That God Allows
Evil to Exist?

There are no easy answers to your question that will not appear trite.

Consider the universe, the endless expanse of space. It is God's creation. He
made it. Because God is the maker of the universe, He not a part of it. He is
independent of His creation.

Who can comprehend that God? Would you call Him big, powerful, are there words
to describe Him? And yet, we see what He has done.

We never give a thought to the universe somehow collapsing, and falling in on
us, because we know, even without acknowledging it, that God holds it all in
place. We know, without acknowledging it, that He is good.

Scientists can observe what God has done, but they cannot explain the how and
why because God is beyond our comprehension, or He would not be God.

The only things we know about Him are the things that He has chosen to reveal
about Himself in creation, in His Word, and in Jesus Christ, who is God in the
flesh.

It's one thing to give you a theological answer. It's another thing to look at a
particular situation and answer why to trouble and pain in your life, or why to
some of the dreadful things we read in the news. God doesn't usually give us a
reason for the particulars. But, He is the same Good God who holds the universe
in place. He is that same incomprehensible, all powerful, and controlling God.

For myself, the best things I know about God, I have learned in the midst of
every rotten thing that can happen to a person. The absolute worst thing that
can happen to us is for God to leave us to ourselves.

If something really bad is happening, it tells me God is thinking about me.

You never know, when evil happens, who is being affected, or how God is working
in the midst of it, but I can assure you, He is!

Read the 23rd Psalm, and ask Him to be your shepherd. You'll be amazed at how He
works to answer the deepest questions of our heart!

Recipe: Jen's Best Healthy Cookie

This is an adaptation of an original recipe in a little newsletter called 'A
Real Life' back in a 1996 issue.

Barely a year after my mother and father married, her parents decided to
divorce. My mother traveled to Chicago and spent an entire week pleading with
her parents to restore their relationship. Unsuccessful, she returned
emotionally exhausted, needing more than ever a warm, accepting relationship
with her mother-in-law, who lived nearby. But for reasons still unknown to us,
she was never embraced by my father's mother.

You'd think, then, that my childhood would be one of growing up with a mother
embittered by her loss of parental affection and support. You'd think my
relationship with my grandparents would be distant and suspicious. Yet quite the
opposite was true. That's because my childhood was protected by a mother who
quietly accepted the circumstances God had ordered for her life and refused to
pass along her pain to the next generation.

My mother could have poisoned my brothers and me against both sets of
grandparents, spewing angry tirades about the hurt and rejection their failures
had caused her. She could have criticized my father, making him the scapegoat
for his mother's attitude toward her.

But she didn't. She never once said any negative words about these important
people in our lives. As a result, we grew up confident of our parents' love for
us, secure in their commitment to each other and free to enjoy our extended
family relationships.

Each of us enters marriage with our own share of pain and baggage. But you don't
have to pass it on and load down your children with it. You can stop the cycle
in your generation by refusing to become embittered and by speaking well of your
family.

DISCUSS

If you've been guilty of this kind of complaining about family, now is the time
to admit it and ask for forgiveness. Commit to handling your pain God's way.
Discuss how you can help one another process pain.

PRAY

Ask the Lord for the grace and maturity to protect your children from living
with pain they didn't cause. Consider giving thanks to God for the imperfect
circumstances that created your pain in the first place.

Source: Moments with You

Story - The Fruit Vendor

A fruit vendor - an old village woman - gets a smart customer. The customer says
'How much for a dozen of apples?

"Rs 200 per dozen, Sir"

"Ok. Give me a dozen apples."

The customer takes the apples. After a pause, as if changing his mind, he says..

"No No I will take bananas instead. How many bananas for Rs 200?"

"Four dozens, Sir"

He picks up the bananas. Again changes his mind and says..

"No No, not bananas. I will take the strawberries instead."

"How many strawberries for Rs 200?"

"Two kgs of strawberries, Sir."

"Ok, Give me two kgs of strawberries."

The woman packs two kgs of strawberries and asks for money.

The smart customer says, "what money?" The woman says "the money for the
strawberries."

The smart customer says, "I took the strawberries in exchange for the bananas."

"Then pay for the bananas."

" I exchanged the bananas for the apples."

"Then pay for the apples."

"What apples? I did not buy the apples at all. Why should I pay?"

The poor old woman was confused. She could not argue with him as the smart
customer was too good in the argument. She knew that something was wrong but
could not figure out what the fallacy was.

In a way, some people are like that old woman. They cannot figure out what is
wrong with the intellect, the intellect which solves the puzzle of the creation
of the universe, and yet leaves them with a feeling of hollowness.

They are not as intelligent as scientists, they cannot argue with science, but
keep wondering "Why my life feels incomplete in spite of the progress of
science? Is there something more than science?"

Humor: Putting Things in Proper Light

In Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament), a Congress MP during his speech told a story.....

"There was a father who gave 100 rupees each to his 3 sons and asked them to buy
things and fill up a room completely.

First son bought hay for Rs. 100 but couldn't fill the room entirely.

Second son bought cotton for Rs. 100 but couldn't fill the room entirely.

Third son bought a candle for Rs. 1 and lit it up and the room was filled with
light completely."

The MP added:

"Our Prime Minister is like the third son. Since the day he has taken charge of
his office, our country is filled with the bright light of prosperity"

A voice from the backbench asked:

"Woh sab toh theek hai...but where is the remaining Rs. 99?"

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